Part 11 (1/2)
February 12, 1893. [2]
William II has left no stone unturned, and has displayed the utmost skill, in endeavouring to enfold in his influence the heir to the throne of Russia. He has devoted to this end all the splendour that an Imperial Sovereign can display in the entertainment of his guest, all the resources of enthusiasm which he can lead his people to display in welcoming him, all his tricks of apparent good-will, all the fascination of a mind which is apt to dazzle those who meet it for the first time (although later on it is apt to inspire them with weariness by its very excesses), every manifestation of a wistful friends.h.i.+p which proclaims itself misunderstood.
The whole Germany of tradition displayed itself before the eyes of the Tzarewitch, all its treacherous appearance of good nature, all its dishonest methods, composed of a mixture of vanity and apparent simplicity, whose object it is to make people believe in a sort of unconsciousness of great strength. The German Emperor made an appeal for a union of princes to resist the restless democracy of our times, and repeated it with urgency, and in the usual stock phrases. In a word, William II laid under contribution, to charm the son of the Tzar, all his arts and spells of fascination. Why wonder that he succeeded, when we remember that M. Jules Simon, a French Republican, member of the Government of National Defence in 1870, came back from Berlin singing the praises of the King of Prussia? Also, that the entire Press of our country, with the sole exception of the _Nouvelle Revue_, was wont, at the commencement of William's reign, to speak with sympathy of the genial character of the ”young Emperor,” to praise his schemes of social reform, and to express its belief in the superiority of a mind which, as a matter of fact, is remarkable only for its excesses and disorder? But all Germany, like M. Jules Simon and the French Press, will find out the truth. The country may have gone into ecstasies over the first acts and first speeches of its young sovereign, but it will soon learn to know how little connection there is between the words and a.s.surances of William of Hohenzollern and his deeds.
At the outset, during the sojourn of the Tzarewitch at Berlin, whilst he was being carefully coddled by the Emperor, the chancellor, Von Caprivi (who boasts of having no initiative of his own and of acting only under the orders of his master), was inspiring accusations, and making them himself before the military commission, charging the war party in Russia with secretly plotting against Germany. One would like to know where the war party in Russia can possibly be at the present moment?
At the same time that William II was endeavouring to recover and restore amicable relations with the Tzar, he had every intention of carrying through his schemes of military re-organisation and the increase of the army, which, as Von Caprivi was wont to say after His Majesty, const.i.tute essential safeguards against a Russian invasion.
Now, the good Germans welcomed the son of Alexander III; they meant to prove to William II how useless they considered the increase of the army, inasmuch as the Tzar, with whom lies the final arbitrament of war, had shown his desire for peace by sending his son to Berlin. The Tzar, whose statecraft is great and profound, had clearly foreseen what the German people would think of the presence of his son in their midst; he showed them by this means that the increase of the army is useless, and that all the agitation and complications which William provokes, the oppositions and the struggles which he himself creates amongst the forces that he lets loose, give rise to dangers, far greater than any with which Russia could ever threaten Germany.
William II wears blinkers; he can sometimes see in front of him, but never around him nor behind. He believed that the Tzar and the Russian Press were going to be affected by the same sort of enthusiasm which he had inspired in the Tzarewitch, but the Tzar, Russia, and the Russian Press considered matters dispa.s.sionately and saw them in their right light; they were even of opinion that William II had displayed far too much vanity in his reception of the Tzarewitch and too little dignity.
Consequently, after the departure of the Tzarewitch, the Emperor-King of Prussia, had a fit of rage, furious with disappointment at not having been able to follow up the success which he had obtained with the Tzarewitch himself. In one of those fits of ungovernable temper which lead him to commit so many irreparable mistakes, and which are the despair of his Government and his Court, he caused Von Caprivi's Press to publish the news of an attempt upon the life of the Tzar. But the methods of reptile journalism are now thoroughly understood and the Emperor Alexander, guessing the source of this lie, demanded an immediate apology, which Admiral Prince Henry hastened to convey, in the name of his brother, to the Russian Emba.s.sy. At the same time that he invented this story of the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the King of Prussia, German Emperor, proposed a toast in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, in which he looked forward to ”the glorious day when the British fleet should fight the common enemy.” The common and double enemy of England and Germany, as every one is aware, is France and Russia.
March 11, 1893. [3]
Until quite recently, the proposed military law was heatedly discussed in Germany. Realising that the Military Commission was on the point of rejecting it, William II finished his speech in the following words--
”The supporters of the proposed Sedlitz Law accused the Government of weakness, when it withdrew the Bill in the face of the clearly declared opposition of a majority of the nation. Well, then, the proposed military law provides us with an opportunity of showing that my Government is not a weak one, and that the firm will of my grandfather, the Emperor William, lives again in me.”
A few days before the vote in the Reichstag, Herr Bebel had raised the question of International Arbitration wherein, he said, lay Germany's best means of proving her love for peace, even should it involve the risk of having the question of Alsace-Lorraine brought before an International Tribunal. Hereupon, Von Caprivi, Chancellor of the Prusso-German Empire, replied to the applause which had come from almost the entire Reichstag, as follows--
”The deputy Bebel advises us to adopt a tribunal of International Arbitration. He admits the possibility that such a tribunal might raise some day the question of Alsace-Lorraine; he insinuates that we were to blame for the outbreak of war in 1870, and that there are those who maintain this idea with even greater strength and a.s.surance than himself. Well, then, if such a tribunal should come together, and should express, no matter in what connection, its opinion on the question of Alsace-Lorraine, and if that opinion should be to the effect that Germany should hand back Alsace-Lorraine, I am convinced that Germany would never submit to such a decision, and that she would rather shed her blood to the last drop than to hand back these provinces.”
To which Herr Bebel naturally replied--
”When one holds ideas of this kind, it is perfectly evident that one cannot admit of International tribunals.”
Before his little speech, His Majesty the German Emperor had made a big one, from which we learned yet once again that William I had been entrusted with a mission, and had handed it down to William II; and then we heard once more the phrase with which Bismarck had deafened our ears, on one of his bl.u.s.tering days, and which the King of Prussia has re-issued in a new form and on his own account: ”We Germans fear G.o.d and nothing else in this world.”
Well, Sire, I for my part believe that your Majesty fears something else besides G.o.d, and that is the disintegration of the Triple Alliance.
March 29, 1893. [4]
William II is ever at pains to invest those occasions in which his personality plays a part, with all the glamour of Imperial pomp. Once again, accompanied this time by an enormous retinue of Germans glad of the occasion of a free trip to a sunny land, William II is about to remind the Romans at Rome of the majesty of the Caesars. May their King not be reminded at the same time, by certain aspects of this triumphal procession, of Rome's captive kings. In binding herself to Germany, has not Italy given herself over into bondage to the Teuton and especially to Austria, her hereditary foe? I could readily answer this question in the affirmative by looking back into the past, I who have so often shared in the patriotic emotions of Italy in bygone days; but every people is ent.i.tled to be the sole judge of its own destinies, and its best friends abroad have no right to endeavour to enlighten it by any rays which do not fall from its own heaven above. One can easily lead a nation astray, even by means of truths that have been clearly demonstrated beyond its frontiers. One is compelled to admit that the most extraordinary events may occur amongst one's neighbours.
William II, after having sent General Loe to congratulate Leo XIII on his Episcopal Jubilee, has just made a speech on the occasion of the silver wedding of King Humbert I and Queen Margaret. It will please the Italians, but this ambiguous policy seems to me anything but flattering, either for the Italian Kingdom or for the Papacy. As in 1888 and with the same ceremonies, Leo XIII will receive the Emperor-King of Prussia at the Vatican, and William II, as on that previous occasion will be able to split his sides with laughter on returning to the Quirinal, mimicking the Holy Father and boasting that he has befooled him once more.